lookin

AdamSmith has several things That sometimes get him down: Hubbard, Paul, and Constantine, And Helen Gurley Brown.

I learned that, as soon as one Benjamin Nicholas thread dies down, OZ will start up another one.

In the age of shorthand texting and auto-correcting software, I don't think spelling is as important as it was in my salad days. Back then, it wasn't as hard to separate the well-educated from the not-so-well-educated, and most folks put some effort into placing in the top half. These days, the standards are much more relaxed and I don't view spelling errors the same way I did then. That said, thanks to luv2play, I'm reading Smart Aleck by Howard Teichmann, erstwhile English professor at Barnard College, and was rather proud of myself for spotting a spelling error on page 42. Granted, it was merely the use of 'then' instead of 'than' but, still, the book was published by William Morrow & Company, Inc., who should have been able to spring for a good proofreader to cover for any of Teichmann's own oversights. Apparently, Woollcott himself was no stranger to misspelling when he was a young 'un, yet went on to found the Algonquin Round Table where a goodly share of the early twentieth-century literati rested on their laurels at one time or another. So there's always hope. On balance, I'd have to say that there are qualities more important to me than an escort's spelling abilities. As long as I can find something that looks like the word 'hung' somewhere in the ad, I'm a happy camper.

Perhaps OZ could get a deal on the website.

I think TY's concept is spot on, and the execution is good except perhaps for the guy on the left. He looks a smidge too Stanley Ipkiss for my taste.

Given the never-ending tsuris that dogged Poe throughout his life, I'm surprised his characters got off as easy as they did. With consumption taking his beloved wife (his cousin whom he met when she was nearly nine and married four years later), he was unable to escape his demons even through drink, as a single glass of wine or weak cider was enough to get him snockered. Unable to hold a job for long, he lived well below the poverty line nearly every year of his adult life and his family eventually tired of bailing him out. He wrote in the days before copyright law, with the initial payment for a poem or story usually all he ever got. Others, though, did profit from his work. According to one article, here's Poe's take for a number of his best pieces: MS. Found in a Bottle - $50 (a prize, not a payment) Ligeia - $10 The Haunted Palace - $5 The Fall of the House of Usher - $24 William Wilson - $50 The Murders in the Rue Morgue - $56 The Masque of the Red Death - $12 The Tell-Tale Heart - $10 The Black Cat - $20 The Gold-Bug - $100 (a prize, not a payment, and likely Poe's largest haul) The Purloined Letter - $12 The Raven - $9 (Earning him a fraction of what he made on The Gold-Bug, Poe wrote, “The bird beat the bug, though, all hollow.”) The Cask of Amontillado - $15 Ulalume - $20 Eureka - $14 (an advance, and probably all he ever got) The Bells - $45 Annabel Lee - $10 Frankly, had it been me, I doubt any of my characters would have endured less than getting their kishkas wound around a windlass. (Actually, poor St. Elmo, pictured above, blazed that trail, also enduring other defilements that are best discovered on an empty stomach.)

So how come I always have to wear the collar?

The Marque of the 1%

The good news is that this happened five years ago and, from the guy's recent posts on Reddit, he's doing fine. More, I'm sure, than can be said for his father.

Perhaps it was OZ working on his new new website.

According to this article, many Republican governors are refusing to set up the on-line insurance exchanges that will allow folks to start shopping for competitively priced health insurance, and to see if they qualify for financial aid. The exchanges are part of the Affordable Healthcare Act and are scheduled to be up and running by next October. Fortunately, the Obama administration is not sitting idly by and is hard at work creating a federal exchange for those who won't have access to a state exchange. It will be ready right on schedule. Of course, the Republicans are crying foul and complaining that such a federal exchange can't offer any subsidies in their states, preferring that their less wealthy folks just go without insurance entirely. Wrong again, say the feds. The federal exchange, and the subsidies, will be ready and available to all, right on schedule. Unless, of course, ex-Governor Romney manages to get himself elected President and makes good on his promise to repeal the national healthcare program which is largely based on the one he implemented in Massachusetts. Could the Republicans get any nuttier?

From the ALEC article: In 2012, Walter Mondale, former Democratic Vice President of the United States, and Arne Carlson, former Republican governor of Minnesota, referred in an op-ed piece to the political activities of the Koch family and ALEC, saying: "[ALEC] is the creation of the Koch brothers who amassed their fortunes in oil and who live in Florida. The goal of ALEC is to influence legislators across the nation." Journalist John Nichols opined in The Nation that the Koch brothers have provided funding to ALEC for "decades" in a "savage assault on democracy".

Thought this would be another run-of-the-mill whackjob until I got to the end of the article and the reference to his membersip in ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, allegedly spawned by the Koch Brothers. An eyepopping read.

Namaste. No sir, the Benjamin Nicholas thread is no longer in the cloud. In fact it is high above. Mr. OZ has most urgently requested that it be placed somewhere near Uranus. Yes, please do have a nice day.

Naturally modest growth is my preference. If I'm feeling unusually hirsutophilic, I can always shlep along a merkin.

Just picked up Smart Aleck today. Thanks. I'll read the Vicountess' book too if I stumble across it. My latest book was an old one on computer history. I like reading about the early computers, the ones that used vacuum tubes and were strung together with baling wire. I can understand those. They lost me when they started putting everything inside a little black chip with legs.

Not sure if this one's official.

Whoa, dude! You try comin' in seventh in the Olympics when you're baked. They shoulda given me a Platinum!

Rimming Practice starts just as soon as somebody helps me out of these pants.

So you're sayin' that if we let the rich old Mormons have lots of wives, we'd end up with a bunch of horny young guys who are temporarily short of funds? Hmm.

I hope he doesn't pick up any bad habits.

Heartiest congratulations to FourAces! And, on behalf of the little people who won absolutely bupkis, thank you all most humbly for reminding us that posting is its own reward.

I'll bet you not only won but also took everyone over to Mickey's for cocktails and 'afters'. No doubt OZ will be sending you a bill for the balance due.

You probably never ducked into a library stall for a quick BJ either. But it sounds like what you're aiming for is the true Boyfriend Experience. I can just imagine his warm breath on your neck as he slips down those slinky straps and slings that hot white number straight up into the ceiling fan. All best wishes and I'm sure it will be a very lovely evening!

Thanks, Lucky, for the link. I'm not much of a fiction reader but, if you tell me that he gets into data mining too, I'll track this one down. There are already fifty reviews on Amazon, most quite favorable, and that seems like a lot for a book that's been out such a short time. I'm glad to see it as my hunch is that most folks would like to turn away from this subject and think about it as little as possible. A popular, well-written thriller may be the sugar that helps the medicine go down.